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A new blog to contain answers to prompts |
Since my old blog "Everyday Canvas "  became overfilled, here's a new one. This new blog item will continue answering prompts, the same as the old one. Cool water cascading to low ground
To spread good will and hope all around.  |
| Prompt: Language Is language just a communication tool? Or is it more than that? What do you think about languages in general? -------- Anyone who can't find the exact word for what they mean to say would tell us how important language is. Language is, of course, a communication tool, but also, it is so much more than that. Above all, language shapes thoughts. There is a hypothesis called The Sapir-Whorf theory, a.k.a. linguistic relativity. It says "the structure of a language can shape its speakers' cognitive processes and world view." This may be quite true. Even Charlemagne said, way back when, "To have another language is to possess a second soul." After him, Ludwig Wittgenstein added, "The limits of my language means the limits of my world." Taking such quotes to heart, in my earliest of days, I became interested in languages and later on studied linguistics and its theories and such. So, it was easy to find out that speakers of different languages perceived and interpreted reality differently, based on the structure of their language. That is so true and I feel so thankful to have come into the acquaintance of several different languages, and even though I can or cannot speak some of them, luckily, I can read all of them. They teach me different concepts and different ways of thinking about the same things. Relatedly, for those who know only one language, their language becomes deeply tied to their cultural identity. It reflects their history, values, and traditions. Dialects, slang, and linguistic variations, therefore, often signal a sense of belonging to a specific social group. From the same corner, walks in the political rhetoric, propaganda, legal discourse, and media narratives to shape public opinion. So I ask, as much as the sense of belonging to a specific group or country is comforting, why not open our horizons to wider areas and thoughts? Still, the best use of language, in my opinion, is when language is used as a medium of art and emotion in literature, poetry and related subjects, as I bet most WdC members will agree. This is because these arts explore and enhance our everyday lives. As Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, “Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.” This just shows how important language is as the cornerstone of our human experience. |
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